TRB Special Report 330: Performance of Bridges That Received Funding Under the Innovative Bridge Research and Construction Program, examines the results of a federal program to promote innovation in highway bridge construction. The Innovative Bridge Research and Construction (IBRC) program, created by act of Congress, provided state departments of transportation with a total of $128.7 million i...

TRB Special Report 329: Renewing the National Commitment to the Interstate Highway System: A Foundation for the Future explores pending and future federal investment and policy decisions concerning the federal Interstate Highway System. Congress asked the committee to make recommendations on the “features, standards, capacity needs, application of technologies, and intergovernmental roles to up...

TRB's Truck Size and Weight Limits Research Plan Committee has issued its second and final report, Research to Support Evaluation of Truck Size and Weight Regulations, to the U.S. Department of Transportation. The report presents a research plan to reduce the major sources of uncertainty in projections of the consequences of proposed changes in truck size and weight limits. The report defines a...

The final version of TRB Special Report 327: Safety Regulation for Small LPG Distribution Systems is now available. The report examines the regulatory framework for gas pipeline systems that transport propane and other types of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) for service to 100 or fewer customers. Most of the more than 12 million households and businesses that use LPG are on single-customer syste...

In 2012, Congress gave the U.S. Federal Transit Administration (FTA) the authority to establish a new comprehensive framework to oversee the safety of the country’s public transit systems. As part of that framework, state and local transit agencies are required to engage in safety planning. In the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act of 2015, Congress asked the National Academies of Scie...

TRB's Special Report 325: Safely Transporting Hazardous Liquids and Gases in a Changing U.S. Energy Landscape reviews how the pipeline, rail, and barge industries have fared in safely transporting the increased volumes of domestically produced energy liquids and gases. The report, sponsored by TRB, reviews the safety record of the three transportation modes in moving these hazardous shipments a...

TRB Special Report 324: Designing Safety Regulations for High-Hazard Industries, examines key factors relevant to government safety regulators when choosing among regulatory design types, particularly for preventing low-frequency, high consequence events. In such contexts, safety regulations are often scrutinized after an incident, but their effectiveness can be inherently difficult to assess w...

TRB Special Report 323: In-Service Performance Evaluation of Guardrail End Treatments develops a research design for evaluating the in-service performance of guardrail end treatments and other roadside safety devices and identifies the data required to do so. Given the substantial data requirements and methodological challenges of conducting successful evaluations of particular end treatments, ...

TRB Special Report 322: Application of Remote Real-Time Monitoring to Offshore Oil and Gas Operations provides advice to the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) of the U.S. Department of the Interior on the use of remote real-time monitoring (RRTM) to improve the safety and reduce the environmental risks of offshore oil and gas operations. The report also evaluates the role th...

TRB Special Report 321: Strengthening the Safety Culture of the Offshore Oil and Gas Industry offers recommendations to industry and regulators to strengthen and sustain the safety culture of the offshore oil and gas industry. A supplemental product titled Beyond Compliance provides an executive-level overview of the report findings, conclusions, and recommendations. The committee t...

TRB Special Report 320: Interregional Travel: A New Perspective for Policy Making examines the demand for and supply of interregional transportation in the United States. Major additions to transportation infrastructure, including high-speed rail, are being considered for some of the country’s most heavily traveled 100- to 500-mile corridors. The availability and use of the automobile, airplane...

TRB Special Report 319: Between Public and Private Mobility: Examining the Rise of Technology-Enabled Transportation Services analyzes how innovative transportation services, including ridesharing, carsharing, bikesharing, and microtransit, are changing mobility for millions of travelers. Such services could reduce congestion and emissions from surface transportation if regulated wisely to enc...

TRB Special Report 318: Modernizing Freight Rail Regulation examines the future role of the Surface Transportation Board (STB) in overseeing and regulating the service levels and rate offerings of railroads, particularly as they become revenue adequate. The approaches recommended in this congressionally-requested report are intended to resynchronize a regulatory program that has become outdated...

TRB Special Report 317: The Essential Federal Role in Highway Research and Innovation summarizes conclusions and advice on the Federal Highway Administration’s (FHWA’s) critical role in highway research, development, and technology (RD&T) that have been developed over the years by TRB’s Research and Technology Coordinating Committee (RTCC). The RTCC is charged to monitor and review the FHWA...

TRB Special Report 316: Evaluation of the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) Research and Development Program assesses the effectiveness of the FRA's process for identifying research priorities and the usefulness of FRA’s Research and Development (R&D) products for improving railroad safety. The study was conducted at the request of the FRA. The committee evaluated the performance of fou...

TRB Special Report 315: Funding and Managing the U.S. Inland Waterways System: What Policy Makers Need to Know explores the role and importance of the federally funded inland waterways system, priorities for future investment, its beneficiaries, and sources of funding. In recent years, the inland waterways system has transported six to seven percent of all domestic ton-miles of cargo. The syste...

TRB has released the final version of Special Report 314: The Federal Aviation Administration’s Approach for Determining Future Air Traffic Controller Staffing Needs that examines the methods used by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to estimate how many controllers are needed to staff its air traffic control facilities and its processes for using these estimates to properly distribute ...

TRB Special Report 313: Framing Surface Transportation Research for the Nation’s Future explores opportunities for improving the productivity of U.S. expenditures on surface transportation research by building on lessons learned from the strategic approach to developing priorities and investing in transportation research in other countries and nontransportation sectors in the United States. Des...

TRB has released the final print version of TRB Special Report 312: Transportation Investments in Response to Economic Downturns that provides guidance for federal and state officials on the best ways to use stimulus funds for transportation in the future and methods for evaluating such investments. The report examines lessons learned and impacts from the states' management of the transportatio...

TRB has released Special Report 311: Effects of Diluted Bitumen on Crude Oil Transmission Pipelines that analyzes whether shipments of diluted bitumen have a greater likelihood of release from pipelines than shipments of other crude oils. The oil sands region of Canada is the source of diluted bitumen shipped by pipeline to the United States. The committee that produced the report did not find ...

TRB Special Report 310: Worker Health and Safety on Offshore Wind Farms that examines the hazards and risks to workers on offshore wind farms on the outer continental shelf as compared to offshore oil and gas operations; explores gaps and overlaps in jurisdictional authority for worker health and safety on offshore wind farms; and evaluates the adequacy of—and recommends enhancements to—the exi...

TRB Special Report 309: Evaluating the Effectiveness of Offshore Safety and Environmental Management Systems recommends that the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) take a holistic approach to evaluating the effectiveness offshore oil and gas industry operators’ Safety and Environmental Management Systems (SEMS) programs. According to the report, this approach should, at a min...

TRB has released an interim report of the committee examining methods for assessing the effectiveness of an operator’s Safety and Environmental Management Systems (SEMS) program on any given offshore drilling or production facility. The letter report presents nine methods for evaluating the effectiveness of an operator’s (i.e., lessee’s) SEMS program, presents the benefits and disadvantages of ...

TRB has released the final version of TRB Special Report 308: The Safety Promise and Challenge of Automotive Electronics: Insights from Unintended Acceleration, which examines how the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s (NHTSA’s) regulatory, research, and defect investigation programs can be strengthened to meet the safety assurance and oversight challenges arising from the ex...

TRB Special Report 307: Policy Options for Reducing Energy Use and Greenhouse Gas Emissions from U.S. Transportation examines the potential for policies to yield major changes in transportation energy use and emissions trends by policy measures targeting cars and light trucks, medium and heavy trucks, and commercial airliners. These three modes are by far the largest users of energy by U.S...

TRB Special Report 306: Naval Engineering in the 21st Century: The Science and Technology Foundation for Future Naval Fleets examines the state of basic and applied research in the scientific fields that support naval engineering and explores whether Office of Naval Research (ONR) activities, under its National Naval Responsibility for Naval Engineering (NNR-NE) initiative, have been effective ...

TRB Special Report 305: Structural Integrity of Offshore Wind Turbines: Oversight of Design, Fabrication, and Installation explores the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement (BOEMRE) approach to overseeing the development and safe operation of wind turbines on the outer continental shelf, with a focus on structural safety. The committee...

TRB Special Report 304: How We Travel: A Sustainable National Program for Travel Data assesses the current state of travel data at the federal, state, and local levels and defines an achievable and sustainable travel data system that could support public and private transportation decision making. The committee that developed the report recommends the organization of a National Travel Data Prog...

TRB Special Report 303: Equity of Evolving Transportation Finance Mechanisms addresses the equity of alternatives to current transportation finance mechanisms, notably mechanisms based on tolling and road use metering (i.e., road pricing). The committee that developed the report concluded that broad generalizations about the fairness of high-occupancy toll lanes, cordon tolls, and other evolvin...

TRB Special Report 302: Federal Funding of Transportation Improvements in BRAC Cases explores federal funding of transportation improvements in Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission (BRAC) cases. The committee that produced the report concluded that traffic delays resulting from the BRAC decisions and short timeline for implementing the decisions will impose substantial costs on surro...

TRB Special Report 301: Air Traffic Controller Staffing in the En Route Domain: A Review of the Federal Aviation Administration’s Task Load Model examines the structure, empirical basis, and validation methods of an FAA model that estimates the time controllers spend performing tasks when handling en route traffic. The model’s task load output is being used to inform workforce planning. The com...

The National Academy of Engineering and the National Research Council have released the interim report of the Committee on the Analysis of Causes of the Deepwater Horizon Explosion, Fire, and Oil Spill to Identify Measures to Prevent Similar Accidents in the Future. The interim report includes the committee’s preliminary findings and observations on various actions and decisions including well ...

TRB has released the prepublication version of Special Report 300: Achieving Traffic Safety Goals in the United States: Lessons from Other Nations. The report explores the reasons why several high-income nations have achieved better highway safety records than the United States and recommends best practices from abroad that would fit in the U.S. context. The report examines traffic safety progr...

TRB Special Report 299: A Transportation Research Program for Mitigating and Adapting to Climate Change and Conserving Energy suggests that federal, state, and local policy makers need informed guidance about the effectiveness, costs, feasibility, and acceptability of transportation strategies to mitigate transportation greenhouse gas emissions and conserve energy and to adapt to climate change...

TRB Special Report 298: Driving and the Built Environment: Effects of Compact Development on Motorized Travel, Energy Use, and CO2 Emissions examines the relationship between land development patterns and vehicle miles traveled (VMT) in the United States to assess whether petroleum use, and by extension greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, could be reduced by changes in the design of developme...

TRB’s Special Report 297: Funding Options for Freight Transportation Projects explores ways to pay for projects that expand freight capacity or reduce the costs of freight transportation. The committee that produced the report found that present finance arrangements are inadequate for maintaining and improving freight transportation system performance. The report calls for finance reforms...

TRB Special Report 296, Implementing the Results of the Second Strategic Highway Research Program (SHRP 2): Saving Lives, Reducing Congestion, Improving Quality of Life explores promising results expected from the SHRP 2 research and provides recommendations on how they could be most effectively implemented. The committee that developed the report believes that the widespread implementat...

TRB Special Report 295, The Federal Investment in Highway Research, 2006-2009: Strengths and Weaknesses assesses how well the investments that Congress made in research programs through the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users comply with the principles articulated in the preface to the act’s research title. The report contains findings and...

TRB Special Report 294: The Role of Transit in Emergency Evacuation explores the roles that transit systems can play in accommodating the evacuation, egress, and ingress of people from and to critical locations in times of emergency. The report focuses on major incidents that could necessitate a partial to full evacuation of the central business district or other large portion of an urba...

TRB Special Report 293, Risk of Vessel Accidents and Spills in the Aleutian Islands: Designing a Comprehensive Risk Assessment provides guidance for a comprehensive risk assessment of vessel accidents and spills in the Aleutian Islands. The report examines data related to the risk of oil, chemical, and other hazardous cargo spills from vessel traffic through the Aleutian Islands and iden...

TRB Special Report 292, Safety Research on Highway Infrastructure and Operations: Improving Priorities, Coordination, and Quality recommends the creation of an independent scientific advisory committee (SAC). The SAC would be charged with development of a transparent process for identifying and prioritizing research needs and opportunities in highway safety, with emphasis on infrastructu...

TRB and the Division on Earth and Life Studies (DELS) have released TRB Special Report 291: Great Lakes Shipping, Trade, and Aquatic Invasive Species, which reviews existing research and efforts to date to reduce aquatic invasive species introductions into the Great Lakes and identifies ways that these efforts could be strengthened toward an effective solution. Since its opening in 1959,...

TRB Special Report 290: The Potential Impacts of Climate Change on U.S. Transportation explores the consequences of climate change for U.S. transportation infrastructure and operations. The report provides an overview of the scientific consensus on the current and future climate changes of particular relevance to U.S. transportation, including the limits of present scientific understanding as ...

TRB Special Report 289: Building the Road Safety Profession in the Public Sector examines the growing need for experts at all levels of government to develop and implement systems- and science-based approaches to road safety management. According to the committee that authored the report, the lack of professional recognition and comprehensive road safety education and training opportunit...

TRB Special Report 288, Metropolitan Travel Forecasting: Current Practice and Future Direction, examines metropolitan travel forecasting models that provide public officials with information to inform decisions on major transportation system investments and policies. The report explores what improvements may be needed to the models and how federal, state, and local agencies can achieve t...

TRB, the Policy and Global Affairs Division (PGA), and the Institute of Medicine (IOM) have released TRB Special Report 287, Improving Road Safety in Developing Countries: Opportunities for U.S. Cooperation and Engagement. The report summarizes presentations and discussions at a workshop held on January 26-27, 2006, in Washington, D.C. The workshop focused on the sharp increases in...

TRB and the Board on Energy and Environmental Systems, part of the National Academies’ Division on Engineering and Physical Sciences (DEPS), have released Special Report 286, Tires and Passenger Vehicle Fuel Economy: Informing Consumers, Improving Performance. This report examines the contribution of tires to vehicle fuel consumption and the prospects for improving tire energy performanc...

TRB Special Report 285: The Fuel Tax and Alternatives for Transportation Funding examines the viability of existing revenue sources, the merits of present transportation finance arrangements, and potential directions for reform of transportation finance. According to the report, fuel taxes can remain the primary funding source for the nation's highways for at least another decade, but ev...

TRB Special Report 284, Transportation Knowledge Networks: A Management Strategy for the 21st Century examines how transportation information should be managed and provided. The report provides strategic advice to the federal government and the states regarding a sustainable administrative structure and funding mechanism for meeting the information service needs of the transportation sec...

TRB Special Report 283: Cooperative Research for Hazardous Materials Transportation: Defining the Need, Converging on Solutions examines the feasibility of a research program to find ways to ensure the safe transport of hazardous materials. The report outlines how industry, state and local governments, and federal agencies could develop a cooperative program that would fill gaps in current res...

TRB Special Report 282: Does the Built Environment Influence Physical Activity? Examining the Evidence reviews the broad trends affecting the relationships among physical activity, health, transportation, and land use; summarizes what is known about these relationships, including the strength and magnitude of any causal connections; examines implications for policy; and recommends priorities f...

TRB Special Report 281: Transmission Pipelines and Land Use: A Risk-Informed Approach calls upon the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Office of Pipeline Safety in the Research and Special Programs Administration to work with stakeholders in developing risk-informed land use guidance for use by policy makers, planners, local officials, and the public.

TRB Special Report 280: Development and Deployment of Standards for Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS): Review of the Federal Program presents recommendations for future management of the Federal Highway Administration’s ITS Standards Program. A summary of Special Report 280 as published in the January-February 2005 issue of TR News is available.

TRB Special Report 279 - The Marine Transportation System and the Federal Role: Measuring Performance, Targeting Improvement calls upon the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) to take the lead in assessing the performance of and improving the nation's entire marine transportation system. In particular, the report recommends that the DOT should begin immediately to develop reports on the co...

TRB Special Report 278 - Buckling Up: Technologies to Increase Seat Belt Use calls upon the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to encourage the automotive industry to expedite the development and deployment of enhanced systems that remind drivers to use seat belts, and to monitor and study the effectiveness and acceptability of the new devices. According to the report, Cong...

TRB Special Report 277 - Measuring Personal Travel and Goods Movement recommends a series of actions the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) should take to render its flagship surveys -- the National Household Travel Survey (NHTS) and the Commodity Flow Survey (CFS) -- more effective in meeting the needs of a broad spectrum of data users. The report al...

TRB Special Report 276 - A Concept for a National Freight Data Program calls upon the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) and its Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) to take the lead in coordinating freight data collection in the United States. Citing the need for accurate goods movement data in order to make informed decisions related to congestion, economic competitiveness, safety ...

TRB Special Report 274 - Cybersecurity of Freight Information Systems: A Scoping Study reviews trends in the use of information technology in the freight transportation industry and assesses potential vulnerabilities to a cyberattack.

TRB Special Report 273 - Shipboard Automatic Identification System Displays: Meeting the Needs of Mariners assesses the state of the art in Automatic Identification System (AIS) display technologies, evaluates current system designs and their capabilities, and reviews the relevant human factors aspects associated with operating these systems. View report summary as published in TR News 232 May...

TRB's Special Report 272 - Airport Research Needs: Cooperative Solutions urges the U.S. Congress to establish a national airport cooperative research program. The committee that produced the report called such a program essential to ensuring airport security, efficiency, safety, and environmental compatibility.

TRB Special Report 271 - Freight Capacity for the 21st Century recommends development of a national policy to promote better management and investment decisions in order to maintain and improve the capacity of the nation's freight system. Keeping up with growth in freight transportation requires better use of current facilities and the funding of projects with the biggest payoffs. To ensure ad...

TRB Special Report 270: Deterrence, Protection, and Preparation: The New Transportation Security Imperative examines the role of science and technology in countering terrorism. It presents advice on a strategic approach to transportation security that recognizes the need to move people and goods efficiently and the need to improve security against terrorism. The report emphasizes a...

TRB Special Report 269 - the Relative Risks of School Travel: A National Perspective and Guidance for Local Community Risk Assessment presents a method to estimate, on a per-mile and per-trip basis, the relative risks that students face in traveling to and from school by walking, bicycling, riding in passenger vehicles with adult drivers, riding in passenger vehicles with teenage drivers, or t...

TRB Special Report 268 - Surface Transportation Environmental Research: A Long-Term Strategy defines a broad and ambitious research program to address and inform major public policy debates about the effects of surface transportation facilities and operations on the human and natural environments. The committee that conducted the study identified major gaps in knowledge that could be filled thr...

TRB Special Report 267 - Regulation of Weights, Lengths, and Widths of Commercial Motor Vehicles recommends the creation of an independent public organization to evaluate the effects of truck traffic, pilot studies of new truck designs, and a change in federal law authorizing states to issue permits for operation of larger trucks on the Interstates. In 1991, Congress placed a freeze on maximum...

TRB Special Report 266: Naval Engineering: Alternative Approaches for Organizing Cooperative Research evaluates alternative approaches for organizing and managing cooperative research programs in naval engineering. At the request of the Office of Naval Research (ONR), TRB/the Marine Board convened a committee to investigate and evaluate alternative approaches for structuring cooperative researc...

TRB Special Report 265 - An Assessment of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's Rating System for Rollover Resistance finds that the static stability factor is a useful indicator of a vehicle's propensity to roll over, but that U.S. government ratings for new cars, light trucks, and sport utility vehicles do not adequately reflect differences in rollover resistance shown by avai...

TRB Special Report 264 - Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement Program: Assessing 10 Years of Experience recommends that Congress retain the sole federal surface transportation program that funds projects to reduce pollution and traffic congestion in areas that must comply with national air quality standards. The Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement (CMAQ) program was e...

TRB Special Report 263 - Future Flight: A Review of the Small Aircraft Transportation System Concept reviews the plausibility and desirability of the SATS concept, giving special consideration to whether its potential net benefits--from user benefits to overall environmental and safety effects--are sufficiently promising to warrant public-sector investment in SATS development and deployment. T...

TRB Special Report 262: A Process for Setting, Managing, and Monitoring Environmental Windows for Dredging Projects concludes that scientific information about risks to resources and technical options for reducing those risks was not being systematically incorporated into the dredging process. The process itself is complex and time-consuming because of the numerous federal and state agencies a...

TRB Special Report 261 - The Federal Role in Highway Research and Technology examines the federal role in the nation's overall highway research and technology (R&T) effort. Its emphasis is on determining whether the focus and activities of the federal program are appropriate in light of the needs of the highway system and its stakeholders as well as the roles and activities of other nationa...

TRB Special Report 260 - Strategic Highway Research: Saving Lives, Reducing Congestion, Improving Quality of Life examines the goals, research agenda, administrative structure, and administrative needs for a new strategic highway research program. After extensive outreach to the highway community, the committee recommended the establishment of a Future Strategic Highway Research Program (F-SHR...

TRB Special Report 259 - Environmental Performance of Tanker Designs in Collision and Grounding: Method for Comparison describes a modeling process for evaluating alternative designs. The process encompasses consideration of the structural deformations from collisions and grounding and the environmental consequences of spills of different sizes, and uses a riskbased approach for comparing desi...

TRB Special Report 258 - Contracting for Bus and Demand-Responsive Transit Services: A Survey of U.S. Practice and Experience examines the extent and practice of transit service contracting and its effects on operating costs, customer service, safety, and other aspects of service quality and quantity.

TRB Special Report 257 - Making Transit Work: Insight from Western Europe, Canada, and the United States describes the differences in public transit use among U.S., Canadian, and Western European cities; identifies those factors, from urban form to automobile usage, that have contributed to these differences; and offers hypotheses about the reasons for these differences--from historical, demogr...

TRB Special Report 256 - Managing Technology Transfer: A Strategy for the Federal Highway Administration addresses how the U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Highway Administration selects research products for technology transfer and transfers those products to the highway industry, in particular the state and local agencies that own, operate, and maintain the nation’s highways.

TRB Special Report 255 - Entry and Competition in the U.S. Airline Industry: Issues and Opportunities focuses on some well understood and recognized opportunities to encourage airline competition, especially in larger markets. During the mid-1990s, new-entrant carriers filed formal complaints with USDOT, contending that large established airlines were engaging in predatory pricing (pricing belo...

TRB Special Report 254 - Managing Speed: Review of Current Practices for Setting and Enforcing Speed Limits reviews practices for setting and enforcing speed limits on all types of roads and provides guidance to state and local governments on appropriate methods of setting speed limits and related enforcement strategies. Following an executive summary, the report is presented in six chapters an...

TRB Special Report 253 - National Automated Highway System Research Program: A Review assesses the appropriateness of the original vision and mission of the National Automated Highway System Research Program, the National Automated Highway System Consortium's (NAHSC's) results and the effectiveness of the approach taken by NAHSC in carrying out its charge, and the role of the consortium in futu...

TRB Special Report 252 - Policy Options for Intermodal Freight Transportation recognizes that freight transportation is of critical importance to the United States and that intermodal freight transportation is one of the major technological and organizational trends affecting the performance of the sector. During the last two decades, the importance of freight efficiency to the nation’s economy...

TRB Special Report 251 - Toward A Sustainable Future: Addressing the Long-Term Effects of Motor Vehicle Transportation on Climate and Ecology identifies some of the challenges that lie ahead in managing transportation's long-term environmental effects and the kinds of research and preparations that are needed to inform policy and meet these challenges. Although the report does not recommend spe...

TRB Special Report 249 - Building Momentum for Change: Creating a Strategic Forum for Innovation in Highway Infrastructure urges the formation of the Strategic Forum for Innovation in Highway Infrastructure, whose central mission would be to identify and effect positive change in the fundamental opportunities and incentives for innovation in products and services for the highway system. This re...

TRB Special Report 248 - Shopping for Safety: Providing Customer Automotive Safety Information examines consumer needs for automotive safety information and the most cost-effective and meaningful methods of communicating this information. Since passage of the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1966, which created the agency known today as the National Highway Traffic Safety Admini...

TRB Special Report 247 - Landslides: Investigation and Mitigation contains comprehensive, practical discussions of field investigations, laboratory testing, and stability analysis procedures and technologies; comprehensive references to the literature; and discussions of case studies, state-of-the-art techniques, and research directions. A 2016 survey of the practitioners conducted by the Rockf...

TRB Special Report 246 - Paying Our Way: Estimating Marginal Social Costs of Freight Transportation is a preliminary examination of whether shippers of domestic surface freight pay the full social costs of the services that they use. This study is intended not to provide definitive answers as to whether shippers pay their full social costs but rather to determine the feasibility of making such ...

TRB Special Report 245 - Expanding Metropolitan Highways: Implications for Air Quality and Energy Use reviews existing research on the links among highway capacity, traffic flow characteristics, travel demand, land use, vehicle emissions, air quality, and energy use in metropolitan areas; Identifies the conditions most likely to affect emissions and energy use; reviews the reliability of models...

TRB Special Report 244 - Highway Research: Current Programs and Future Directions describes the United States' highway industry and the major highway research and technology (R&T) programs. It then introduces a new framework for classifying highway R&T activities, maps the 1993 expenditures of the major public-sector programs on this framework, and presents suggestions and recommendatio...

TRB Special Report 243 - Ensuring Railroad Tank Car Safety examines the overall process for ensuring tank car design safety and, more specifically, whether all tank cars carrying hazardous materials should be equipped with special safety devices, known as head shields, to prevent tank car head (end) punctures. Tank cars are common, representing about one out of every seven rail cars. Over the y...

TRB Special Report 242 - Curbing Gridlock: Peak-Period Fees to Relieve Traffic Congestion examines public perseption of congestion pricing. Although road users pay fuel taxes to support the costs of building and maintaining roads, most people view roads as free. Traffic congestion frustrates millions of motorists daily and imposes economic costs in the 50 largest urban areas in excess of $70 b...

TRB Special Report 241 - Compensating Injured Railroad Workers Under the Federal Employer's Liability Act assesses the injury compensation system that has evolved under Federal Employer's Liability Act (FELA) and compares it with the no-fault compensation systems that cover most U.S. workers. Railroad workers who are injured on the job seek compensation for their injuries under the provisions o...

TRB Special Report 240 - ISTEA and Intermodal Planning: Concept, Practice, and Vision includes the proceedings of a conference on the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 (ISTEA) and intermodal planning issues. The conference objectives were to: (1) Review the evolution of the planning and funding of the U.S. transportation system; (2) Identify the new planning mechanisms de...

TRB Special Report 239 - Hazardous Materials Shipment Information For Emergency Response examines the feasibility and necessity of a central reporting system and computerized telecommunications data center that is capable of receiving, storing, and retrieving data concerning all daily shipments of hazardous materials, and that can provide information to facilitate responses to accidents and inc...

TRB Special Report 237 - Moving Urban America: Proceedings of a Conference includes the proceedings of a conference to advise the United States Department of Transportation, the community at large, and state and local elected officials on the appropriate planning and decision-making process needed to select and develop projects that will improve urban mobility, with emphasis on efficiency, conc...

TRB Special Report 236 - Intermodal Marine Container Transportation: Impediments and Opportunities examines where and how government action might assist in overcoming impediments and fostering efficiency in intermodal marine container transportation, especially through technological or institutional innovation. The report analyzes 10 key issues on which government in the United States affects o...

TRB Special Report 235 - Highway Deicing: Comparing Salt and Calcium Magnisium Acetrate examines the total cost of salt and calcium magnesium acetate (CMA), including the indirect cost of application and indirect costs to the environment, infrastructure, and motor vehicles. Much of the report focuses on defining the true cost of salt, which is the most popular deicer and the standard of compari...

TRB Special Report 234 - Data for Decisions: Requirements for National Transportation Policy Making examines data requirements necessary to support strategic transportation policy making and the institutional changes necessary to make those data available on a permanent basis. The report calls for the establishment of a statistical agency within USDOT (this recommendation became helped create t...

TRB Special Report 233 - In Pursuit of Speed: New Options for Intercity Passenger Transport assesses the applicability of high-speed ground transportation (HSGT) technologies to meet the demand for passenger transportation service in high-density travel markets and corridors in the United States. In certain corridors, high-speed rail could offer a means of reducing congestion at airports and on...

TRB Special Report 232 - Advanced Vehicle and Highway Technologies addresses the overall objectives for a national intelligent vehicle- highway systems (IVHS) initiative and methods by which the program could be managed effectively. The committee reviewed experience in the United States with existing systems that incorporate some IVHS technology; programs under way to develop and demonstrate ad...

TRB Special Report 231 - Transportation, Urban Form, and the Environment is the proceedings of a conference, sponsored by the Federal Highway Administration and the Transportation Research Board, which examined the options available for maintaining future urban mobility. Its purpose was to bring together experts to (1) review the status of our current knowledge with respect to recent historical...

TRB Special Report 230 - Winds of Change: Domestic Air Transport Since Deregulation examines the appropriate role of government in the deregulated airline industry. In Perhaps the most significant federal policy change regarding aviation occurred in 1975 when the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) began giving air carriers greater freedom in discounting prices and serving new markets.1 These adminis...

TRB Special Report 229 - Safety Research for a Changing Highway Environment examines how well the highway safety research community is prepared to address emerging safety problems and to capitalize on opportunities for their solution. The committee that produced this report was particularly interested in how the research process could be better managed to encourage innovation and more effective...

TRB Special Report 227 - New Trucks for Greater Productivity and Less Road Wear: An Evaluation of the Turner Proposal evaluates the approach to regulation of the size and weight of trucks using U.S. roads known as the Turner Proposal. This approach had its origin in a proposal put forth in a 1984 address to AASHTO by former Federal Highway Administrator Francis C. Turner. The approach evaluated...

TRB Special Report 226 - Airport System Capacity: Strategic Choices examines solutions to congestion and delay and mechanisms to stimulate and ensure adequate capacity. As with other infrastructure assets, the federal government provides substantial funding for airports, but decisions about siting, expanding, building, and operating the facilities are made at the state and local levels. The com...

TRB Special Report 225 - Truck Weight Limits: Issues and Options examines various proposals for changes in truck weight regulations. Truck weight limits have always been controversial. They involve trade-offs between the cost to build and maintain highways and the cost to transport goods by truck, and they have implications for highway safety, traffic flow, and highway finance. Improvements in ...

TRB Special Report 224 - Safety Belts, Airbags, and Child Restraints identifies emerging policy issues and make recommendations for research in the area of motor vehicle restraint systems. Although many policy decisions regarding occupant restraints have been made--the passive restraint requirements of Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 208 (FMVSS 208) are being phased in, and most states no...

TRB Special Report 223 - Providing Access for Large Trucks covers appropriate highways for access, safety, vehicle handling characteristics, pavement service life, access to service facilities, local government access policies, the implementation of access policies, and the definition of terminal. The Surface Transportation Assistance Act of 1982 attempted to strike a balance between improved e...

TRB Special Report 222 - Improving School Bus Safety examines the causes of school bus accidents and evaluates the effectiveness of safety measures, including seat belts, that might better protect children while they are boarding, riding, and leaving school buses.

TRB Special Report 221 - Light Rail Transit: New System Successes at Affordable Prices contains the papers presented at the National Conference on Light Rail Transit, held May 8-11, 1988, at San Jose, California, as well as six additional papers submitted to the Transportation Research Board. Together with the proceedings of previous conferences, this report documents the development of North A...

TRB Special Report 220 - A Look Ahead: Year 2020 are conference proceedings from a meeting of the same title. The objective of the conference was "to identify the nature and level of demand for future highway and public transit services and their role in the nation's future transportation system." The conference, one of the first steps in the Transportation 2020 program effort, provided essenti...

TRB Special Report 219 - Pipelines and Public Safety examines issues asociated with development near pipeline rights-of-way. Pipelines provide a vital transportation service. Approximately half of the nation’s supplies of crude oil and petroleum products and virtually all of its natural gas supplies are transported through a network of 1.7 million miles of pipelines. The materials carried by pi...

TRB Special Report 218, Transportation in an Aging Society: Improving Mobility and Safety for Older Drivers explores the mobility and safety needs of older persons. Originally published in 1988, the report is now available in an electronic format. The report examines safety needs of the older person in traffic; reviews potential measures to improve highways, vehicles, driver and pe...

TRB Special Report 217: New Organizational Responses to the Changing Transit Environment assesses the effectiveness of transit organizational structures now being used and those developed in recent years, and identifies further organization changes appropriate to the new conditions and pressures transit faces.

TRB Special Report 216: Zero Alcohol and Other Options: Limits for Truck and Bus Drivers includes a majority recommendations for the of the members of the committee that produced this report that a zero tolerance policy be adopted, with penalties ranging from 30 days’ suspension below 0.04 percent BAC to license revocation for BAC above 0.04. USDOT subsequently adopted a 0.04 percent BAC standa...

TRB Special Report 213: Research for Public Transit: New Directions reviews transit research programs and recommends improvements. The report calls for an operator-sponsored, problem-solving research program focused on priority topics of common interest to transit providers. The committee urges Congress to allow the agencies to pool their funds to organize and conduct such research. With strong...

TRB Special Report 212: Transportation Management for Major Highway Reconstruction is the proceedings of a conference held on September 28 - October 1, 1986 that assessed the state of practice of corridor traffic management during major highway reconstruction. The objectives of the conference were: to provide an educational forum for exchanging technical information on planning, implementing, a...

TRB Special Report 211: Twin Trailer Trucks examines the potential safety effects of the new federal truck size rules (the Surface Transportation Act of 1982 requires states to permit twin 28-ft trailers on Interstate highways and on principal roads). The study also addressed other effects of the new rules on highway transportation including the trucking industry use of twins, safety consequenc...

TRB Special Report 210: Transportation Education and Training: Meeting the Challenge is the proceedings of a conference on the needs and opportunities that face transportation education and training. The objectives of the conference were to: (1) define the skills and educational backgrounds needed by new transportation professionals at all levels to meet the challenges they will likely face dur...

TRB Special Report 209: Highway Capacity Manual, 3rd Edition is a collection of state-of-the-art techniques for estimating capacity and determining level of service for many transportation facilities and modes. The 3rd edition of this manual was updated in 2000 as Highway Capacity Manual 2000 . The first Highway Capacity Manual was published in 1950 and provided definitions of key terms, a comp...

TRB Special Report 208: Proceedings of the Conference on Evaluating Alternative Local Transportation Financing Techniques is the proceedings of a conference to disseminate the results of current research on local transportation financing to an audience of local officials, planners, transportation managers, and financing specialists and to consider the issues associated with evaluating alternati...

TRB Special Report 207: Transportation Professionals: Future Needs and Opportunities Aware assesses future professional needs in highway and mass transit agencies in federal, state, and local government. This study also examines the role of consulting firms in satisfying the future professional requirements of highway and transit agencies. A large number of professionals who entered highway and...

TRB Special Report 206: Proceedings of the National Conference on Decennial Census Data for Transportation Planning includes many background papers prepared for and presented at the meeting as well as the conference workshop summaries, the recommendations of each workshop, and an overall synthesis of all the conference findings and recommendations. This conference is the latest in a three-decad...

TRB Special Report 205 : Should Intercity Bus Drivers Be Allowed To Use CB Radios? recognizes the importance of improved communications on the highways, but also recognizes that CB radios have many drawbacks and are not sufficiently reliable to warrant recommending universal use on intercity buses. Transportation Research Board (TRB) staff visited several bus companies, including some that all...

TRB Special Report 204: 55 -- A Decade of Experience evaluates the benefits and costs of the 55 mph speed limit and assesses the effectiveness of state laws in inducing compliance. The findings and recommendations of the committee are presented in this report, along with the unresolved issues that surround the appropriate speed limit for selected roads. The committee findings on the consequence...

TRB Special Report 203: Proceedings of the Conference on Energy Contingency Planning in Urban Areas assesses the state of energy contingency planning, with particular emphasis on the following four issues: (1) Progress in energy contingency planning since the 1979- 1980 energy crisis; (2) The new environment of deregulation with determination of the impact on contingency planning; (3) The role ...

TRB Special Report 202: America's Highways: Accelerating the Search for Innovation outlines a strategy for screening potential highway research areas to identify the most promising for a national program and there by identifies six priority areas where a concerted research effort can produce major innovations that will increase the productivity and safety of the nation's highway system: asphalt...

TRB Special Report 201: Travel Analysis Methods for the 1980s is the proceedings of a conference which assessed the planning methods, in particular travel analysis methods and their applications, as a follow-up to the Conference on Urban Transportation Planning in the 1980s, held at Airlie House, Warrenton, Virginia, in November 1981. At the 1981 meeting new requirements for urban transportatio...

TRB Special Report 200: Trolley Bus: Where It Is and Where It's Going is the proceedings of a conference that examined the application of trolley bus systems to modern day transportation needs. The conference explored current technology and uses around the world. Highlighted at the meeting were not only those transit systems that use trolley buses but also specific developments in areas such as...

TRB Special Report 199: Future Directions of Urban Public Transportation is the proceedings of a conference of the same name. Part 1: Conference Purpose (Introduction to the Conference, H.C. Neil Peterson III, Opening Remarks, Carole A. Foryst); Part 2: why is Transit in Trouble?; Part 3: Conference Consensus Statement; Part 4: Overview papers: Effects of Energy Supply and Telecommunications on...

TRB Special Report 198: Bus Maintenance Improvement contains proceedings of the Bus Maintenance Improvement Workshop held April 14-16, 1982 in St. Louis. The workshop was to exchange information on current transit industry practices related to bus maintenance, to define industry needs, and to generate suggestions for research, development and technical assistance programs in the maintenance are...

TRB Special Report 197: Transportation of Hazardous Materials: Toward a National Strategy; Vol 1 presents a summary of the 1981 Williamsburg Conference which developed recommendations for a comprehensive national strategy to provide safe and efficient transportation of hazardous materials and wastes in the 1980's. The conference covered regulation, training, emergency response, legal responsibi...

TRB Special Report 196: Urban Transportation Planning in the 1980s are the proceedings of a conference in which government officials, transportation planners, consultants and academic experts considered emerging problems and recommended appropriate technical and institutional responses. The conference participants identified and discussed the following: new requirements for urban transportation...

TRB Special Report 195: Light Rail Transit: Planning, Design, and Implementation is the proceedings of a confernce that focused on key technical and institutional issues that are unique to implementation of the LRT mode. These papers are divided into four groups. Those in Part 1 and 2 provide an overview of light rail transit and policy and planning considerations. They treat issues such as ins...

TRB Special Report 194: Application of Traffic Simulation Models presents the resource papers and workshop summaries of a conference on traffic simulation models. The conference had two objectives: to inform the user community about what models are available and what is planned for their future development; and to obtain feedback from users on their experiences in the application of simulation ...

TRB Special Report 193: Ridesharing Needs and Requirements: The Role of the Private and Public Sectors contains the proceedings of a conference which focused on research activities that addressed the needs of ridesharing practitioners and policymakers, on funding research in the areas of greatest need, and on stimulating new research, both funded and unfunded. This report consists of 4 parts. P...

TRB Special Report 192: Relocation and Real Property Acquisitions is the proceedings of a conference that examined the experiences of federal, state and local officials in implementing relocation and real property acquisition programs; to identify problems and to suggest approaches to solving these problems and improving the effectiveness of the legislation. Some of the areas covered are consid...

TRB Special Report 191: Considerations in Transportation Energy Contingency Planning is the proceedings from a conference held in San Antonio, Texas, April 13-16, 1980, that focused attention on energy resources used for domestic transportation and the formulation of public policy related to contingency planning in the transportation life of the nation. This volume contains the proceedings of t...

TRB Special Report 190: TSM in 1980 - State of the Art and Future Directions is the proceedings of a conference structured to address three major issues in TSM planning and implementation--the identification of organizational roles in TSM planning, programming, and implementation, including the roles of the private sector and the professional disciplines; an understanding of why certain high-ac...

TRB Special Report 189: State Transportation Issues and Actions is the proceedings from the second Conference on Statewide Transportation Planning and Programming. The conference focused on the following: 1. Identify the challenges that will be faced by the states, now and in the next 20 years, particularly in the areas of the economy, energy, urban policy, and changes in transportation systems...

TRB Special Report 188: Review of Rail Transport Research Needs is a follow-up of a TRB 1975 study on rail transport research needs. The review was to determine whether research was still needed, whether priorities had changed and whether any new research needs had arisen. The report includes summary statements on the recommended research agenda by AAR, FRA Office of Research and Development, a...

TRB Special Report 187: Transportation Planning for Small and Medium-Sized Communities is the proceedings of a conference that was convened to provide for the exchange of experiences among practitioners of transportation planning for cities of fewer than 200,000 people, to provide guidance for transportation policies and programs, to foster the development of future activities in this area, and...

TRB Special Report 186: Paratransit-1979 are the proceedings of a conference that synthesized and evaluated the significant paratransit services across the U.S. and Canada, and assessed their relevance for other communities. The Conference was organized to provide results that would help the Urban Mass Transportation Administration (UMTA) to understand the problems and potentials of praratransi...

TRB Special Report 185: Snow Removal and Ice Control Research contains 56 conference papers pertaining to snow removal and ice control research. Several of the papers are concerned with deicing salts--their effectiveness, their impact on the environment, and possible alternatives to them. Alternative methods of deicing discussed herein include: heating of bridge decks, increasing coefficient of...

Special Report 184: Urban Transport Service Innovations is a progress report on paratransit. The papers published here include some that were presented at the Transportation Research Board's Conference on Urban Transport Service Innovations in San Diego, December 5 to 8, 1977, and some that were presented at the Fifty-seventh Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board in January 1978. ...

TRB Special Report 183: Transportation and Land Development are the proceedings of the Conference on Transportation and Land Development and its consideration of the meeting's central theme--strategic transportation investments to achieve urban and regional development objectives. Transportation policies and programs must be examined to ensure that they achieve such purposes as revitalizing inn...

TRB Special Report 182 - Light Rail Transit: Planning and Technology includes the proceedings of a conference on Light Rail Transit. The conference examined light rail transit (LRT) successes, issues that have frustrated significant LRT development in the U.S., and where and how progress has been achieved. The basic dichotomy between socioeconomic and technological issues in the implementation ...

TRB Special Report 181: Urban Transportation Economics synthesizes theory and practice to produce a practical working program for planning, implementing and administering programs at the local, state, and federal levels. An attempt has been made to examine long-term forces in the urban transportation market that generate chronic transit deficits and to evaluate alternative courses of action to ...

TRB Special Report 180: Railroad Electrification - The Issues contains the presentations at the TRB Conference on Railroad Electrification: The Issues in June 1977 and at the TRB Annual Meeting in January 1977. The following papers are included: The advanatages of Electrifying the Nation's Railroads; Amtrak's View of Railroad Electrification; An Examination of some Economic Obstacles to Electri...

TRB Special Report 179: Glossary of Urban Public Transportation Terms attempts to serve as a basic reference for persons interested in urban transit planning. It is designed to assist transit system operators to understand the analytical language of urban planners and the latter to understand the operational language of transit system operators. The glossary organizes and to some extent standar...

TRB Special Report 178: Future of the National Highway Safety Program describes the delibrations and conclusions of the conference and workshops on the future of the National Highway Safety Program, the basic features of the Highway Safety Act of 1966 are outlined, the Federal role in this area, and the issues and alternatives involved in the program. The conference recommended that the present...

TRB Special Report 177: Urban Transportation Alternatives -- Evolution of Federal Policy presents the findings of two successful conferences which formed the foundation of a unique process of federal rule-making, and the underlying process that culminated in the conferences is discussed. The availablility of new funds for urban mass transportation in 1974 raised complex questions of equitable r...

TRB Special Report 176: Landslides: Analysis and Control brings together, from a wide range of experience, such information as may be useful in recognizing, avoiding, controlling, designing for, and correcting movement. Current geologic concepts and engineering principles and techniques are introduced, and both the analysis and control of soil and rock-slopes are addressed. New methods of stabi...

TRB Special Report 174: Rail Transport Research Needs examines a comprehensive framework for a coordinated national rail transport research effort by industry and government. The goal is a research program of maximum assistance in improving the performance and viability of the rail industry and the decision-making processes of those involved with rail transport. Chapters discuss the problems ex...

TRB Special Report 173: Design of Terminals for Rigid Pavements to Control End Movements: State of the Art finds no superior method of terminal treatment in terms of performance or total cost. As a consequence, it is recommended that the design agencies continue to use the procedure and technique that have been successful in the past. In addition, it is recommended that a long-term monitoring p...

TRB Special Report 172: Transportation System Management contains workshop reports, conference papers, and case studies that were presented at the conference on Transportation System Management (TSM). The conference addressed three objectives: provision of the latest information on DOT policies and requirements, the provision of the latest information on experiences with the actual implementati...

TRB Special Report 171: Tunnel Construction: State of the Art and Research Needs presents reports on the state of the art in seventeen areas: drillings and blasting, structural supports, machine tunneling, materials handling, tunneling in bad ground, shield-driven tunnels with or without compressed air, long-hole drilling in advance of tunnel penetration, contractual relations in tunnel constru...

TRB Special Report 169: Strategies for Reducing Gasoline Consumption Through Improved Motor Vehicle Efficiency contains a summary of a workshop held by the TRB Committee on Energy Conservation and Transportation Demand to provide for a discussion of the issues. The workshop could not encompass all of the facets of this issue, but it served more as a vehicle for the exchange of information for p...

TRB Special Report 168: Transportation and Land Use Planning Abroad includes papers that describe transportation and land use planning experience in Japan, Canada, Europe and the Middle East that can be useful in the U.S. The topics covered here include noise and other transportation impacts, land use techniques to deal with these impacts, transit financing, public participation, pedestrainizat...

TRB Special Report 166: Optimizing the Use of Materials and Energy in Transportation Construction is the proceedings of a workshop that includes 4 keynote addresses and the summaries of discussions on 7 topics. The first paper notes that the energy crisis is real and that the situation will worsen in the future. Statistical tabulations and graphs support the statements. The second paper indicat...

TRB Special Report 165: Traffic Flow Theory is primairly addressed to graduate students in traffic engineering, but is also intended to be a reference book and an introduction to traffic flow theory in general. The 10 chapters of this book cover aspects of measurement, statistical distributions, models, information processing, noise and simulations. The various methods of measurement currently ...

TRB Special Report 164: Paratransit are the proceedings of a conference that addressed problems in the implementation and application of promising techniques within those major functional areas commonly thought to be relevant to paratransit application. The papers highlighted the following alternatives: increased use of high-occupancy modes such as car pools, subscription buses, and jitneys for...

TRB Special Report 161: Light Rail Transit includes papers that cover a wide range of subjects related to light rail transit including a description of system concepts, such as performance characteristics of such transit; comparison with other modes; and applications. The technology and operational aspects of light rail transit are treated in a set of papers that address permanent way requirem...